Django model "doesn't declare an explicit app_label"

Are you missing putting in your application name into the settings file? The myAppNameConfig is the default class generated at apps.py by the .manage.py createapp myAppName command. Where myAppName is the name of your app.

settings.py

INSTALLED_APPS = [
'myAppName.apps.myAppNameConfig',
'django.contrib.admin',
'django.contrib.auth',
'django.contrib.contenttypes',
'django.contrib.sessions',
'django.contrib.messages',
'django.contrib.staticfiles',
]

This way, the settings file finds out what you want to call your application. You can change how it looks later in the apps.py file by adding the following code in

myAppName/apps.py

class myAppNameConfig(AppConfig):
    name = 'myAppName'
    verbose_name = 'A Much Better Name'

I get the same error and I don´t know how to figure out this problem. It took me many hours to notice that I have a init.py at the same direcory as the manage.py from django.

Before:

|-- myproject
  |-- __init__.py
  |-- manage.py
  |-- myproject
    |-- ...
  |-- app1
    |-- models.py
  |-- app2
    |-- models.py

After:

|-- myproject
  |-- manage.py
  |-- myproject
    |-- ...
  |-- app1
    |-- models.py
  |-- app2
    |-- models.py

It is quite confused that you get this "doesn't declare an explicit app_label" error. But deleting this init file solved my problem.

I had exactly the same error when running tests with PyCharm. I've fixed it by explicitly setting DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE environment variable. If you're using PyCharm, just hit Edit Configurations button and choose Environment Variables.

Set the variable to your_project_name.settings and that should fix the thing.

It seems like this error occurs, because PyCharm runs tests with its own manage.py.